Life can take us in many directions, most of them unexpected. And that is exactly how Dr. Mitchell May, founder of The Synergy Company, Moab, UT, must have felt when he woke up in 1972 out of a coma to discover he had been in a car accident that left him badly injured and near death. The extent of his injuries was such that at the very least he would never walk again, according to the doctors. Enduring months of intense pain and ignoring repeated recommendations for amputation, Dr. May continued to resist most medical intervention because he believed that "there was something inside this experience-some secret, some key-that he needed to receive." Little did he know that this key to healing would be found within him.

What accelerated Dr. May's miraculous recovery was his encounter with Jack Gray, an unconventional healer working out of the parapsychology research laboratory at UCLA at the time. According to the Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, a prominent medical journal, "Jack and [Dr. May]'s healing energies restored the life force to [Dr. May]'s wounded body so as to bring about full healing, which included the regeneration of new skin, muscle, nerves, organs and bone." Four years later, against ALL odds, Dr. May made a full recovery, during which he became an apprentice under Mr. Gray. Together, under a multi-year research grant from UCLA Medical Center, these two gentlemen integrated a comprehensive program utilizing various alternative healing modalities.

During this time, Dr. May also began to investigate the therapeutic use of a variety of herbs and botanicals from various cultures. Having worked as an organic farmer prior to his car accident, Dr. May continued to maintain a love and respect for plants. Knowing this, Mr. Gray encouraged him to develop a formula that could elicit in people their own healing capabilities. That is when Pure Synergy, The Synergy Company's flagship product and the industry's first "super food" formula, was born.

Through his research, Dr. May seemed to excel in finding the subtle energy that various plants possess. "If not interrupted, these plants not only retain their energy but also their nutrient profile," he said. "When consumed, these super foods seemed to have an additional value to human well-being."

During Dr. May's use of this formula in his research, he discovered that there were special ways of growing, processing and extracting these ingredients in order to make sure the bioactive components remained intact. "When these properties were properly protected and consumed, a beneficial response in the people that consumed them was apparent," he said. "Once we mastered the formula, we initiated a clinical trial in which we administered this product to hundreds of subjects." Due to such overwhelming response, Dr. May was urged to make this product available on a commercial scale. Considering himself to be more of a scientist than a businessman, Dr. May avoided starting a new company for several years. Eventually, the pleading for his super food product reached a fever pitch, so he decided to launch The Synergy Company-a name chosen to reflect a belief that the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts.

Armed with this philosophy, Dr. May set out to pursue a whole food approach to health. "There is a tendency in the dietary supplement world to get away from the whole food approach and to rely on chemistry and synthetics and additives," Dr. May explained. "People seem to forget that the dietary supplement industry came about because the food industry had lost touch with the whole food concept."

Today, The Synergy Company sits nestled between two national parks and the 13,000-foot La Sal Mountains. According to Dr. May, Synergy's location in the high desert of Moab is ideal because of the pristine nature of the water and the air. In addition, he said, the dry air of the desert creates a very positive environment for protecting plants.

From cultivation to packaging, state-of-the-art technologies are utilized to ensure the protection of beneficial active constituents. The company currently manufactures to FDA GMP standards for dietary supplements and it is also certified to manufacture organic and kosher products. Synergy is additionally registered with FDA as an OTC manufacturing facility. In addition to its own line of whole food organic products, the company also makes available many of its proprietary raw materials to other quality-focused companies in both the supplement and food industry.

The Synergy Company has also been hailed for its environmental contributions, as it believes that businesses are responsible for developing solutions, not exacerbating problems. Accordingly, it strives to promote renewable and sustainable means of doing business. This takes many forms, but all are rooted in the challenge of looking at every impact the company creates and then generating solutions in day-to-day business practices. According to the company, the decision to build its own production facility allowed it to incorporate low-impact and sustainable technologies into every aspect of business. The desire to minimize its use of non-renewable resources influenced the selection of everything from xeriscape (water conserving) landscaping, to low-flow toilets, to energy-efficient appliances, to automatic light sensors. Synergy even goes one step further by using only 100% biodegradable cleaning agents to further protect the valuable water supply.

In looking for additional ways to walk lightly, Synergy has initiated two sustainability programs. First, it purchases 100% of its energy from the Blue Sky Wind Power Program. This means that Synergy is directly responsible for reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 140 tons each year. The company acknowledges that like organic ingredients and foods, wind power is more costly. But Synergy believes it could not justify saving a relatively modest amount of money each month at the expense of the entire planet.

Synergy's second program is called SynerTrees, which is a reforestation program established to annually plant indigenous trees in the U.S. at a rate that exceeds the company's own consumption. To create the program, Synergy first calculated its use of all paper and cardboard, as well as the paper and packing materials used by its vendors to send over raw materials. It then converted that figure to harvested trees and added the number of trees necessary to offset the carbon dioxide emissions associated with all of the company's work-related activities (such as incoming and outgoing shipping via truck and air, its vendors' activities in creating and supplying materials, commuting to work, and work-related air travel). Synergy then adds another 25% to that number to determine the total number of trees it plants, which amounts to over 3000 trees planted annually in protected preserves.

Still, Dr. May believes the company's most significant accomplishments revolve around organics. "Producing organic products is one of the most powerful things we can do ecologically for the planet," he said. "By assisting many large companies in incorporating organic ingredients into their product lines, we are creating a positive outcome for everyone because of the potential to take thousands of pounds of chemicals out of the environment."NW